be formulated thus: Whence comes it and what is the reason that the Prophets occupy a position of repulsion towards the theological validity of the idea of Elôhîm? This antipathy is easily explicable and quite natural from the religious and national position of the Prophets. We have already seen that the idea of Elôhîm, if not actually borrowed, was at least confirmed by outside influences, and that the Hebrews held it in common with the Canaanites. And the consequences of its not having grown up in Hebrew soil were exhibited in its further development, when, after the idea of nationality had spent its short-lived flames, the Hebraised idea of God, allied with the equally borrowed sacerdotal institution, generated those immoral religious practices which are characteristic of the Canaanitish decadence. Moreover, the fact that this theological conception was originally borrowed and not native, was the very thing calculated to make it offensive to the Prophets; and their antipathy to it caused them to tie their religious view of the world, their moral convictions, nay their whole God-loving soul, to a name which had hitherto remained in the background, but which was now brought forward by their genius to the front rank, and became the bearer of all that they thought and felt concerning God. In this sense, the Prophets were creators of Jahveism. The word Jahveh had previously been a meaningless breath, a _flatus oris_, as I said before. Now first it became an active power, as the expression of opposition to the existing evil, the centre of the new aspiration preached by the Prophets. Consequently, it is not the word and its meaning that have the chief import here, but the civilising power associated with the word, its force working on minds. This is not the only instance in which a watchword has had an influence far beyond that which was natural to it as a mere word; so that its original signification has become a matter of indifference. In the word Jahveh the National feature is the essential one.